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Cheese Fondu

A melted cheese mixture with butter, milk, bread crumbs, mustard, cayenne, and eggs, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

Melt and combine

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the milk, bread crumbs, cheese, and dry mustard.

  3. Season with cayenne and stir constantly.

Finish

  1. Just before serving, add the beaten eggs.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich base and provides the main flavor and fat.
Eggs
Thicken the fondue as they set gently in the warm mixture, adding body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the fondue hold together.
Milk
Provides moisture so the cheese melts evenly instead of becoming grainy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base before the other ingredients go in.

The step that matters

Add the beaten eggs just before serving. Eggs thicken by gentle heat, but if the mixture is too hot or left too long they can curdle or turn grainy. Adding them last, with constant stirring, keeps the fondue smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, bread, cheese, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, bread, cheese, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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